Winter's Tale
by Ophelias dream
Summary: This is the story I have been saving for the very last, this is a story about a boy I loved very much. DG
1. About a Boy

_**About a Boy**_

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Walking the streets of London with a little girl, who'd have thought or ever imagined that his life would come to this? But it wasn't so odd as it seemed, their clothes, their mannerisms, their interaction and speech; no one would have thought them misplaced or odd and no one did.

The little girl didn't look very much like him at all but the way she walked and acted was close enough; he could have pulled off as her grandfather, he was really more the age of an older uncle but the way he carried himself and looked was too old, he was too washed and thin. But that's the way life tossed you sometimes.

She hummed and walked ahead a little wandering to the side here, looking in a shop window there. They weren't dressed poorly but they were no upper-class high society passers on the street. She was dressed simply and he even more so. Her name was Winter. He examined her face on many occasion and her name fit her face more then perfectly, he often thought of the child's name, he knew why but sometimes he still puzzled over the fact that her mother would allow such a name, it was not in Her style to name a child, much less her own, after the most desolate of times. She'd more over name Her daughter after himself. He smirked at this thought. Him, one of Her more unlikely acquaintances, and barely that, more like intimate persons to bicker with one another.

He watched Her daughter carefully, he knew it was only a matter of time before he must tell her of the letter he had received; he knew she longed to enter the world he had told her of. He too knew that she longed to walk through a magical barrier and be submerged in the world of her parents, she wanted magic and enchantment, spells and most of all she wanted the world her parents lived in; and she not only wanted the world, she wanted to search and scour every corner of it until she found them. Her strongest desire was to seek out her parents and rejoin them. If only it were so simple. There were so many things she did no understand about that world. So many evils she could not grasp or even understand. Things she had never seen or experienced. He was fairly confident in her personality to come out on top. But he knew there were things she should know before he let her go because he had to let her go.

He eyed her carefully, walking beside him in an airy manner, she wasn't really concerned with his presence but more so looking about the world, she liked people watching.

"I received your letter," and steady on walking he went, he barely let his eyes dance over to hers and forward again, pausing and clearing his throat he asked what he was afraid to ask, "I assume you still wish to study?" He didn't want her to leave, he needed her near so he knew she was safe but he knew there was nothing he could do.

"Oh, yes!" she almost squealed, almost. Not unnerved in the least by her uncles behavior she was jumping with excitement but stopped her self and walked slowly and surely. He smirked, he could see right through that walk, it might not have been his genes that she gathered such pose's from but he knew that walk and expression well enough.

"Right then, next week I will send Minnie with you to Diagon alley to collect your school things." He said, as they made their way toward a café. He could see her eyes wandering again, she was always looking at people, searching the crowds, looking for familiar faces.

Turning back to him she frowned.

"Won't you come with me instead?" she pleaded.

"No, there are something's better left behind" she quirked her eyebrow at him expertly and did not attempt to hide her disappointment. He ignored her pout and frown and kept his feet in stride, incidentally walking ahead of her.

"I suppose you wish to find your parents still?" he inquired, worry filling his mind but he could not stop a lovely image and a smile to erupt as well.

"Yes" she answered forcefully.

"Yes," he turned to her and slowed his pace by a fraction "I suppose that there's no reason you should not want to." Watching her face as she caught up to him he knew what was coming before it emerged from the young girls lips.

"Why won't you come with me Uncle Severus?" she inquired slowly. She knew she was picking through dangerous territory.

There was a long silence and she was ready to think of the subject as closed but finally he spoke "I don't want to I suppose, can't maybe. There is too much history there," he paused as if unsure himself whether his sentence were finished "there are too many things that are better left as is for now." He finished, mildly satisfied with what he had come up with for an answer.

Seeing that she would not get yelled at or get an icy stare she pushed deeper, "But weren't you a teacher at Hogwarts once? Minnie told me." She said, with a hint of craft in her voice.

He looked at her amusedly; she obviously was ready to push buttons "Minnie does not know when to keep her mouth shut sometimes." He said disinterestedly but with a finishing tone.

"But didn't you?" Winter persisted not satiated with such vague and unfeeling answers, "She said you were in league with powerful people."

Stopping at a nearby park he sat fluidly, as if he had meant to stop just there and sit just so, specificity on this bench, not because he was tired and his feet were aching. Waiting for her to sit and staring at the summer foliage around him he thought his words through before saying them.

"Yes, I suppose I was, but those people no longer are powerful, or are no longer the people I knew." He looked at her carefully, as if measuring her up, she was young, but not unintelligent. He raised his eyes back to the clouds.

"Let me tell you one more story." He said. However unlikely it looked of him, his stories were something to be desired by the young girl. Looking at him curiously she nodded and complied.

"Alright then; But there will always be others, won't there?" she asked tentatively.

"I don't really know. This is the story I have been saving for the very last, for two reasons, because I intended and still do intend for this to be my last story to you and second because this is a story that must be told right and it must be told right the first time around."

A bird few by and they both watched it until it disappeared "It's been turning in my mind these past ten years, and I try to hone it and perfect it, yet the time has come now that I must tell you and I cannot tell you the one I have practiced so many times in my head. So unnatural, so impersonal, this is something that needed no rehearsal, I know now. So I will tell it to you as it comes to mind, and I will tell it to you as our last story but perhaps someday there will be one more important to tell. I doubt I will live to the day." He looked at her, she was slightly confused he knew, but there was nothing he could do about that now; she would understand if not after the story, than someday.

"The story I tell you, you may not repeat, not to anyone, not to your most trusted friend not to your husband when you are old, not to Minnie—" He said sharply then mulling over his last words a second, shook his head and said "But I imagine Minnie already knows the tale somehow. Confounded nosy woman," he muttered, then continued "I do not mean that you may not tell others as to protect me, but to protect you, what I will tell you is not what is widely known to be true, in fact the only people left who know this tale, this truth, is myself, and I will tell you, and Minnie most likely knows." She nodded slightly and looked at him and waited. He smiled slightly and started his tale. "I am going to tell you about a boy I loved very much."

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	2. Ends

Disclaimer.

_**Ends**_

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"I was a foolish and ambitious youth but I was intelligent so I was excused from my misdeeds many a time. My luck by intelligence would be my downfall I suppose.

In school I was often alone. I would sit in the back of the library and study spells and potions with great vigor; I knew people talked about me and saw me as a loner, they thought me strange and dark."

"Strange and dark?" Winter asked, her Uncle was not someone one would run up and hug but she wasn't convinced that he was evil or strange and dark.

Smirking he looked down at her, "I was in Slytherin. It was dark times and I had a dark mind, don't be so surprised, I'm just beginning."

She kept her mouth shut and continued to listen, she decided that this was not a tale to be interrupted.

"One night I had an unexpected visitor. She was in my house so I guess it wouldn't seem odd that we knew each other, but if you understood how things worked you would know it wasn't right. She was of a higher class, she was equal to royalty in the wizarding world: Narcissa Black. She walked up to me and watched me. I could feel her eyes her want to insult me to push me and pinch me, another someone who wanted a little poke at Severus.

She didn't though. She didn't prod or poke or pinch me, she barely treated me different then an average student at Hogwarts. An average student did not constitute, however, the departure of the airs she put on. The average student at Hogwarts was seen at the end of her nose.

Narcissa was a beautiful woman and she knew it, she was not evil but she was conceded. She was arrogant and greedy. Not only was she full of airs but she knew she walked above the rest of the scum she associated with. Perhaps that night she was just looking for somewhere to disappear to. I guess I was her little hiding place because that night she started a domino effect of events that has yet to fall its last piece.

'What are you doing?' she asked, or less asked and more demanded.

I finished the line I was scratching down and raised my eyes; I stared at her a few seconds contemplating and trying to reason her visiting my dusty dark corner of the library; then returned to my parchment and array of books. After another line of illegible words I opened my mouth.

'I am researching.' I said and scratched away.

I could feel her irritation in the air but I gave it one more moment just for the heck of it.

"I'm trying to see if it's possible to create a potion as to clear a persons mind completely and let them concentrate upon but one thing." I elaborated as I knew she wanted, after all she might be a snob but she was still above my station and to that I could not ignore.

She didn't comment and if she didn't make a small noise in her chest when she breathed I wouldn't have known she was even there anymore. So I went on for a few minuets and I researched and she stood there.

'Can't people do that by themselves' she talked as if I'd spoken just moments before.

I looked at her in such a way as if questioning weather or not she would hold the competence to explain things to, I decided she did. I didn't realize it then but that was the beginning of a long teaching career for myself.

'Yes,' I answered. She looked at me, unsatisfied, as if she wanted more then just three letters. So I complied.

'Can people not tell the truth by themselves?' I asked her 'Can a man not die without a curse?' I asked.

She stared at me and nodded that they could and they did.

'So what's the use?' I asked.

She looked at me with hard eyes.

'If I knew I wouldn't be wasting time standing in front of you would I?' I glanced up at her.

I did not mind humoring her but I would not treat her as ain impetulent child even if she acted as one; I would not baby her if that even if that was what she wished. It was just not within my nature.

'I answered your question, and my answer should be sufficient for you to gather an answer for your next from.' I returned to my work and did not look up until she had left.

I wondered if she did not care enough to think about it without being told, or if she had figured it out. I hoped on the latter for some reason. It had been the most pleasant conversation I'd had at Hogwarts, I suppose I hoped it wasn't with a dolt.

Narcissa never showed signs that she had ever spoken to me and I did the same; her fiancé to be was not someone I wished to anger. But none the less she returned to my table one week later.

'Advancement.' was all she said.

I continued to work, 'Yes, it is in part for advancement but also partially.'

Her eyebrows rose and she looked at me expectantly. I almost gave her a grin 'I lied last week.'

'I told you that man could tell the truth on his own, that man could kill on his own; but this is not why he does it. If he kills he kills by choice, if he lies or tells a truth it is his choice. The true answer is past advancement, it is power, power over another and even more so, power over oneself. Only the greedy and ambitious would go to such lengths to completely control not another human being but his self.'

'A Slytherin' she answered knowingly.

Smiling at her faintly I said 'Yes, a Slytherin' and continued with my work.

And that's how it started, it wasn't romance, so don't look at me that way. I was enjoying having a friend too much to even think about romance plus, she was far back betrothed to someone else. Her betrothed was also in my house some years back, Lucius Malfo, he was not a good man, Lucius. She continued to meet me but the meetings were private, secret meetings I suppose.

Lucius could not discover our meetings. He knew everyone Narcissa talked to, he knew everything about her and everything she did and in knowing all of it he kept her chained to him. She was trapped; if he had known I was freeing her up he would have killed me in an instant.

Yes, I helped her. I freed her for what little time I could, the most popular girl in our house was most easily uplifted by the dark and sinister me, sitting in a restricted part of the library studying potions.

Of course we did not always study potions we talked and discussed current on goings. We were both stranded in the darkness of the times. Being not from Ravenclaw or Gryffindor but form the house the evil sprouted, we were Slytherin's and that was perhaps even a greater burden.

I'm not sure knowing her was better for me, I was happy for the company and the conversation but the repercussions are almost more then I can take now. Narcissa was taken in to Lucius' family, into that manor and she was lost. She was as good as dead; she was finally, completely his puppet.

Where she had lightened my heart and I hers, Lucius froze it up and locked it in a cage as soon as he found a key. Such things are not to be caged. But a key he found. He found it when she was first impregnated with a child. Narcissa rarely asked Lucius of things she didn't need his money and she rarely defied him or went against his wishes. But her child, her child she wanted to be cared for by herself, she wanted it to be loved and taught properly. She wanted no misery in her child's life.

In her attempts to keep her child's life free of the burden she wore, she chained herself; she clipped her wings and locked her own bars.

In a way, I was her last salvation, it still makes me feel odd to think of myself as salvation but that's what I was, I would be the one to hold her through the insanity. I never spoke to Narcissa again but before she became his puppet, I gave her the one thing she wanted. Her true wish to raise her own child was hopeless so she wished her child to have a proper instructor before he went to Hogwarts. A tutor perhaps; you could even have called me a caretaker.Not only in potions and transfiguration though. She wanted someone to give him things Slytherin's rarely possesed, she wanted to keep her child away from the darkness as it entered the world. The darkness she was now part of.

It was difficult work getting Lucius to accept me. He didn't want his boy to grow up distant and strange nor did he want a noble and high headed son, he wanted an obedient, evil, bratty heir, whom he could take out of childhood and bend to his whim. Just what Narcissa had feared but Narcissa had become my friend, my only one perhaps and I would repay her and make her death worth something.

I became a deatheater, and was accepted as the boys tutor at once, as a deatheater my morals must be correct in Lucius' eyes.

It was my job to make him more then what was seen; I was to train him in languages and histories and magic, in potions and the dark arts; but I also trained him in the good magic, things his father would never know, the only kind of magic that could over come him, the only thing his father would not expect me to know.

We were given spacious halls and rooms to work in, he was never given a wand though, he was to learn about the magic but not perform it; he was to understand but not be phenomenal. I made him phenomenal. Had he been another child he would not have survived the two lives he had to live, he would not have been able to hide from his father by being the pompous bratty child I was expected to have produced.

I expect my over confidence in him was his own and my own downfall, one of many other things I should not have overlooked.

So we trained, we spared physically and verbally. I could not make him as physically and magically fit as would have been best for him, his father could not know. So I honed his mind instead. I hoped to give him things that power alone could not. Logic and reason. Compassion. Light. I hope he would not be a dark child, for I truly loved him.

He was my son, my masterpiece in life; but I could not let him know. I could never let him know.

He grew older and older and as time went on he was more and more than what I hoped him to be. I maybe made a mistake here, he grew and he grew and I made him old when he was so young. He was quick but had I not fed him as much as I had he would not have grown so quickly. I did though, and he did; soon he was almost my equal. He could match me in a fight; he could spout of the makings of transfiguration, though he had yet to touch a wand. He could brew a potion with seconds to me. He was a brilliant mind and with his brilliance came danger.

It came harder and harder to face his father, every once and a while he would slip because he could not handle life the way he had to live it. It made him sad because he understood, he understood he must fight off an ambition that ran through his blood. I knew he could prevail but he was not so sure. Perhaps he was the wiser, but again, perhaps not.

In an attempt to save him I took him away for a while. Strictly speaking I was not to let him leave the manor but with his father rarely home and his mother rarely not indisposed. I had pretty much free rein, as long as I was careful that no evil eyes found me and my boy. I took him to Hogwarts, I showed him the castle and I walked him through the wizarding world. These things did nothing for him. Everywhere he went he had to hide his head or had to endure the recognition that came with his face.

'Is this what I am?' He asked me when we had left Hogwarts and were wandering the cobblestones of Diagon Alley.

'What do you mean, _this_?'

'A Malfoy, is that what I am?' he glared at me. He knew I knew and I knew he knew; we were just dancing around each other.

'Yes.'

He looked at me surprised. It wasn't what he expected me to say. I had taught him his whole life he is not a Malfoy, I had always taught him that he iwa just Draco but not really just because he was more.

'Yes?'

'Yes!' I almost sneered back.

'I know what's going on now Draco and I know its getting harder. Why don't you give up boy? Give in. Give in! All you are is a Malfoy!' I spat the last words at him and walked off.

'We'll return home at three, meet me here, Malfoy.' And with those last words I let the fruits of the last 10 years of effort stay behind me, it was now up to him. Had I raised him well enough? Was he strong enough to over come? I could only hope he had more Narcissa then she had now; and not only that but more.

He stood for a long while after I left, he didn't know what to do. Had I been what I had trained him against his entire life? Had I been this false always? And the more questions he asked the more confused he got and he walked. He walked up the street, into stores, he walked through peoples voices and he left the Alley and went to Knockturn.

I don't know what possessed him to go there but he did. What he told me is that he was drawn to it. I don't believe that. I believe he was ready to give in, to let go of all I had taught him. I think he knows that too but he was too ashamed to admit it to me, I let him tell me otherwise. I let him tell me because he got out.

He was walking down the cobblestone turned dirt pathways and he heard it, he heard a person, not a grimy foul person, but a pure one. He could hear the purity in her whimper. He didn't understand what a noise like that was doing in a place like such. So he followed it. He already endangered himself, he was a small boy and he was unarmed; he relied on his name to protect him there.

He found the noise, a girl no older then himself surrounded by shattered glass. No big pieces, just tiny sparkling pieces of glitter. And that is all he ever told me of that encounter. But he came back the man I'd made him and more. All he would tell me was of a pure noise and a thousand sparkling pieces of glitter. That's all he would tell me, that and that he was in love. he was so in love, and he was so young. I didn't know what to do. Love was an emotion I was a stranger too but I knew that logic and sense held little weight in the presence of love. Grown men had fallen to love, how could I expect a young boy to prevail?

We returned to the manor that night. His father was home. No worse time could have befallen us; I was no longer welcome in a house which I disobeyed orders. I returned to Hogwarts, it would be a matter of months before my boy would come to school. But it was those months I should have been there, I do not know what happened only that I should have been there.

I cursed Her for a very long time, I cursed Her because he loved her; but it was finding his love that fateful day that began the end. I cursed Her because her love did not save him then. I cursed her because I knew it was unavoidable. And now I cannot curse Her. Because she is the only right."

Winter could not keep her tongue.

"The only right?—I don't understand, Uncle what are you-"

"She was the only right."

"But—"

"The next time I saw Draco…"

"The next time I saw Draco, I could not recognize him. Those fateful months we had been apart, his father had gotten to him. He must have sensed something amiss; it must have been because of that night.

That night when we returned, Draco was in a daze. A daze from which only love could give. He told me they were to meet again, soon. He told me he would marry that girl one day, he told me and told me and told me; but when his father spoke, he said nothing and when his father yelled he looked dull and sorry he had disobeyed. He played his part. When his father stormed, he cowered, he played his part very well. His father made me leave and he burst, the boy yelled and screamed, I don't remember what he said, whatever it was it was most likely more intelligent then he should have been. In a way I was touched, that he cared.

But when he came back to me at Hogwarts his father had played his heart to coldness. He had attended social gatherings the rest of the summer. He had, for the first time met other boys and girls that were what I was supposed to have made him. He held one girls hand, and he had got a kiss from another one; he was but ten, the most intelligent boy I had ever met, yet in a matter of months his father had turned him. It took only weeks for his father to clip Narcissa's wings, at least I do not think he did it to himself as she did.

I never spoke to him of the day, I did not talk about the thousand pieces of glitter or that pure little voice. I didn't know what it would do: tear him apart and bring him back or take him further from me then he already was.

In his new life, I did not fit in. He was cruel boy. I watched him and he was cruel and horrible, he had forgotten all I had taught him.

At the beginning he came to me, he expected he was the same but he was not and he did not see it. There was nothing I could do for him. He did not come to my office to talk to me by second year, he did not read my books on philosophy, they bored him; he wanted pretty girls. I no longer wanted to read my books on philosophy, I no longer wanted to create a potion. I no longer had a use. So I taught, and taught and that was my life for then.

At Hogwarts he did not lose his intelligence. I could see it and he learned more than I expected, but he was not brilliant, he did not reach the standards he had once. He learned and excelled but I believe perhaps it was also that he learned to excel. He excelled but he was not phenomenal. His excellence was not so good as it seemed it was a false front I wanted to strip down and strip him bare of; but he liked it. I think he would have loved it if he had still been capable of love then. I blame myself, I blame myself for the love.

I could never love the boy as openly as I truly did. If he wanted comfort I could not give it to him, I could only give him the material things that meant nothing. But I did not leave him, I taught him and protected him but I would not love him. I think this confused him more then anything. I distanced myself from him, I thought it was best, perhaps this is where I went wrong. What I thought would protect him, never did."


	3. A Step

**_A Step_**

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"I taught for as long as he attended and in my teaching I discovered something, something that would be crucial in the future. I discovered that among the ramble of school life there were invisibles. Invisible people, people unlike my Draco, ones that were not boisterous or so incredibly noticeable but invisible people that fill in the holes in a picture, that finish off the scenery.

As time goes on as a teacher you grow to appreciate the invisible ones but this was not my only discovery. My true discovery was that of a little girl. She was quite invisible but she was brilliant. Nobody really noticed her at first. She was not something one would think worth noticing. So I, like the rest of the world, did not notice her either. Yet as she continued to progress through my class I soon discovered that where often I thought one person excelled by mistake or by pure luck at each assignment, there was no mistake or random happening. It was one little girl. So I observed her and I watched her. She didn't speak often, unspeakable things were happening to her but I still watched her, she was amazing.

The first thing that got me to think of this little girl as more then an amazing invisible was her eyes. They were pure and they made me unsettled inside. As the years whistled by she would overcome her first year and she would become head strong yet somehow not losing her invisible quality or her purity.

I watched her carefully as she grew older; almost more then I watched Draco and she had something burning inside of her. She would sometimes snap, sometimes people pilled too much on; they forgot she was real, so they forgot she had a limit and she would snap. A spectacle to behold it was, when she snapped. There seemed to be no end to her energy yet through it all, through all the pushing and shoving, through all the temptation and evil lurking around the school, she achieved what Draco could not; she retained her innocence and remained blissfully pure. I had my suspicions about her but I caught on by chance.

Draco often liked to goad those that bested him; people might have thought it was because they bested him in class, he may have thought it was because they bested him in class. But I knew otherwise because he could have easily beaten them all. But on the inside I think it was the fact that some prevailed where he had failed.

It was dark times that he was growing up in. Not many people knew but he did and he was swaying toward darkness. He resented those who were good, those who were selfless, those that he had been growing up to be, before that summer. He resented the ease at which they could be good. But instead of turning a leaf and joining them, he spited them, he was cruel to them and he scorned them. If only he would have opened his eyes a little wider.

I came upon him in the hall once, it was only this once that I took my eyes away from him long enough to see anything else and I noticed her, I saw her. Looking into her eyes I saw betrayal, betrayal and hurt and purity. That night I dreamt of a thousand shining raindrops but as they came down, I only felt pain wherever they hit me, my arms and face, my neck and chest, it was almost unbearable but it was so beautiful I could not run away, only then did I realize, it was raining shards of glass.

I woke up that morning and I watched her more and more everyday, every day I hoped to see her in the same premises as Draco and every time I did, my curiosity was more and more aroused. She always watched him with the utmost attention. Not around him, she could be fiery and energetic but around him, she sunk back into the scenery.

There was nothing I could do for either of these children at the moment; I would carry on my lifestyle and hope that something would come and save the two. I don't know what happened but something did and it happened in Draco's fourth year, it was the night of the Yule ball.

It was a bad year at Hogwarts; you must understand that it was at this time that those who knew it was coming were ready for attack. It was the time before the last stretch. The end was not near in sight but we knew it was coming; along with sleepless nights and loss and pain but few knew of this coming and for those who did, this year was a particularly bad year.

Draco took his usual girl to the Yule ball; she was primed and crimped up with the attention like that of royalty. Like most of the boys he lounged around in the four or five hours that the dates were dressing.

We passed each other in the hall, I don't know why he choose to talk to me that day; every once in a while he would talk to me, perhaps a couple times a year. I often looked forward to these moments and tried my best to let them last as long as they could but they were always disappointing.

That day we talked of the current affairs around the castle, how classes were, how hard such things were, nothing intimate though, nothing personal. I asked him if he was going to the ball and he raised his eyebrows at me, in such a convincing manner of what he used to pretend not to be.

'Yes.' He answered slowly as if I were dense, of course he was going to the ball, he loved parties now. He wasn't pretending to be anymore he was far lost.

I asked him who he planned to take.

'Pansy Parkinson.' He said with a smirk. Miss. Parkinson was quite a promiscuous figure in her day, not just in body but in the way she presented herself in mind.

I smiled at him. He might have thought he was happy. I knew he was not though. He had never experienced true happiness but one seemingly forgettable encounter, so he would not miss it. I would make him miss it. Maybe I could not train him anymore but I would not give up.

'Do you love Miss. Parkinson, Malfoy?' I asked. He looked startled, I'm not sure what of. Initially it seemed because I had given him a name, I rarely called him anything, when we talked personally, I would just speak, no emphasis on to whom it was I was talking to. Then it sunk in, that word, love. I had never heard him utter that word but twice.

Once was because he had fallen in and the second, was my own doing.

'_Professor!' five years old Draco was learning how to ride a broomstick; he was a Malfoy after all. And he had fallen. I took this one chance to help him, he was physically injured I told myself, it was really just an excuse to myself. I wanted to love him. _

_In my panic I had levitated and healed him in seconds before I realized it was just a bruise. He looked at me oddly, I think he had me half figured out just then. _

_That night before he went to his room for the night he told me he loved me. I stared at him, unable to voice my thoughts, and not wanting to encourage such a dangerous feeling. I think that was the first time he smirked at me, like he knew I loved him back._

It was a dangerous thing: to love.

Back in that hallway, I don't think I knew what an important thing I had done for him. I had picked the perfect night to do it though. I decided it was then that I would leave and return to my office. Another first for him, I had never left him, I had dismissed him before, sent him to his room, I'd even given him detention but I had never literally or figuratively turned my back to him. I did that day but only literally. To him it must have felt real.

That night I spoke to him once more, I think it was one of the last times I did. He entered the hall with his date, they were expected to attend together, they looked like they were supposed to go together; it sickened me how well Draco fit into that part.

That night I found myself outside, I hated the ball and I was ready to turn in for the night; I decided to circle the grounds once more to catch any stray students once more before I turned in.

I ran into Draco again that night or more so, he ran into me. I was sitting on a bench looking at a fountain. It was such a pure looking thing; it ran smoothly, so perfectly and so beautifully. I watched it for a long time. Until someone cleared their throat behind me, I turned around and saw him stand there.

'Mr. Malfoy.' I responded, he nodded at me and sat next to me.

'What are you thinking about?' he asked.

'Why do you ask?'

'You're always doing something, right? I don't understand, I though if I were to get inside your head again, I could figure it out.' Get inside my head again, did he know he had said again? Did he know he had changed?

'Figure it out?' I questioned, I thought I knew what he meant, but I didn't want to hope.

'Does anything scare you Professor?' he asked me, as if answering my insufficient question to a question, with another question.

'I was thinking about the fountain.' We both turned to look at the fountain for a while, Draco didn't say anything, it was wonderful to be teaching him again. Whether or not he knew I was teaching him, he knew how to learn, he knew I would finish my thought, so he waited.

'It's so graceful, so perfect, so beautiful, it makes me envy it.' We watched some more.

'It releases a steady stream of beautiful clear water and does not waste it, but keeps on giving. I wish I could be like this.' And I paused.

'You envy a fountain?' he asked me. Not mockingly, but just wonderingly.

I smirked.

'No; this fountain works because of magic, it depends on our people; it depends on something else to keep it this way.'

'I was thinking of it because it cleared my mind, it cleared my mind without my thinking of it or trying to,' I smiled, I remembered Narcissa too well.

'It is a human feat to me. But this does not explain why I envy it does it?' I asked.

He shook his head. I turned to him.

'I am afraid of a good many things Mr. Malfoy, why do you ask?'

Glancing at my face he tried to read me, I don't know if he did or not.

'You never seem to fear things, you do not seem to fear my father, you do not seem to fear the Dark Lord, and you do not even fear death if I am correct. You say you fear things, but I see nothing.' He answered. Pupil and teacher again, this is where I excelled, this is where I COULD excel.

'Ah. Yes, but you must realize, I fear things worse then death, I fear life, I fear living with mistakes, I fear living with regret.' I answered easily.

'I envy this fountain because though it stands because of magic, its beauty is its own. I pity it almost more then I envy it though, because anyone like me, who comes to admire the fountain, will see that it is held together by magic, and it will always hold this fountain back. This fountain will never cease to be an inanimate object, it will never feel, it will never live, but I am jealous of it none the less.' I glanced once more at the fountain the stood and turned to my most prized pupil.

'I envy it for its purity.' I finished, I stared at him. I could not see his face, it was bent over. He did not look up at me so I stood and walked away.

I turned back after a few steps, and I saw him tremble; I realized, when he looked up at my face, he was crying. His face had fallen, he knew of what I was talking about. And seeing his face, I saw that he had forgotten all these years. It had haunted him but he never knew what it was. Now he remembered and he cried; I saw the young boy in him then, I saw the teenage adolescent boy he should have been aloud to be. I held his gaze for a moment and walked away. What ever I wish I could have been, these were the cards he was dealt, he must learn to play them.

On my way back to the castle I saw Her walking among the gardens. I stared at her unknowingly for some time and then I truly smiled. Perhaps it was not too late.

And then I went to bed."


	4. A Foolish Time of Year

**_A Foolish Time of Year_**

"Narcissa's husband was by no means good at all, as I have said before, he had no heart, he was inhuman, a monster.

After Narcissa was out of school and after they were married; there was a time where evil had not yet been so prominent in the world but it dwelled beneath the surface waiting to rise again and it would and Lucius would help it on its way. He knew what stood in the way of his master and what mush be taken out, he knew who stood where. Mostly, he knew of everything but me and his son.

There was a family, high in popularity at the time, popular yet not rich. They were of what they call 'good' blood but they had no esteem which came with being pure blooded. This was the Weasley family.

Ginny Weasley, the youngest and only female offspring Weasley was no exception of her family; she was just often overlooked, and forgotten. I believe she was the most amazing of them all though.

That night I found Draco, Draco found Ginny and she forgave him. She loved him and forgave him for everything. It is so strange to think of that moment, and know that they had only met once before, that in the briefest of moments before the corruption of Draco's being, she had touched him so deeply, that no amount of evil could dirty her touch to him.

--

I saw her the next morning and she was smiling, she was more then smiling, she was radiant. I never saw her so beautiful before and only one thing could have made such rosy cheeks. And only one thing could make her glow with such unseen light.

I found Draco and he smiled at me, he smiled, he did not talk to me but he truly, really smiled; and there was not much more that I could ask for then that.

I believe they spent time together that break but I'll never know for sure. They never admitted it, they never told me but to me, these were the children I knew best, it just seemed like it was not a truth but not possible to be untrue.

I didn't think anybody noticed their change except me. But they had. I underestimated her friends, they cared, or at least one of them did. Perhaps it was not that she cared yet but she was intelligent or observant more then intelligent; she had self imposed intelligence. And she noticed Ginny and the invisible glow that surrounded her; and she noticed Draco's change and the softness that was in his eyes sometimes. She noticed that these things were extremely prominent when said people were near each other and grew more and more so, the closer they got. She noticed these things with interest and concern.

I can't blame her for her concern. No matter how much I loved and still do love the boy, or how bright he was; he was not well liked. He was barely liked at all, he was feared and idolized sometimes but he was not liked and never loved.

Perhaps this is why they fit so well together. He was the one no one thought had a heart; maybe because he acted like it, most likely because he lost it. He was the one people feared and knew by sight because of fear. He was evil by birth, snide and arrogant and cocky and a coward. I wish it were not true but he was a coward in every way but even so he was not evil, he was just scared. Then there was Her, She was quite and timid, invisible and delicate; she was pure. She came from a family with an overabundance of love. No one would think that she was low on it. Yet she was; I think Draco received more love then she did. They needed each other, and they wanted each other; they belonged to each other.

Yet her friend who noticed them never questioned it, she never confronted it and soon I think, she forgot it. It got to be normal. It got to be normal to see such strange things, that she didn't even see it anymore. She had more important things to worry about; more important issues to look out for. I had nothing more important to do and I saw nothing more important then this. Neither did they; or neither did they, for long.

As Easter break came around, it seemed as if they saw each other less and less, the glow seemed to die from Ginny's cheeks. I never saw the softness in Draco's eyes anymore. I never saw them near each other after that, for a very long time. Draco became cold again; he became his father more and more every day.

One night I found her in the halls. She didn't know what I knew. She didn't know I knew what she knew. She was crying, she was angry and she was crying.

She looked at me, and said, 'He used me like trash, like yesterdays parchment, old and yellowing, too wrinkled to use now. Well _he_ used me, _he_ wrinkled me, _he_ kept me locked up in a drawer so long that I became old, he let me age.' And she cried and, I don't know if she knew she was crying, but she stood there, and tears ran down her face.

I didn't know what to do. I looked at her and didn't know what to do. I knew what she was talking about. I felt my heart fall when I realized what was happening. I felt my heart hurt when I realized what he'd done to her. I knew he did not deserve her but I knew he needed her; and I still loved him so very much. Crying girls are not my area of expertise, to say I was uncomfortable is an understatement. After staring back at her for a few minuets I told her to leave.

'Miss. Weasley, I don't know why you are wandering the dungeons at this time of night, nor do I care. Return to your dormitories immediately' I said glaring at her.

She glared back.

'It is foolish enough you are wandering the school after hours but this is dangerous Miss Weasley, so I suggest you return before you get hurt and I deduct another ten points from the twenty I just have.' And she turned and walked away, glaring at me until she was facing forward.

I watched him for a few days. I couldn't understand why he had done what I thought he had done. It didn't make sense to me that he would just let her go, no one suspected. No one thought they were together. I watched him and once, I saw him waver, he had a moment of uncertainty. I saw it in the way he stood and I realized something. He was trying to be brave, he was trying to do something right. He wanted to protect her; He wanted to keep her pure. A foolish goal, an admirable and honorable goal but it was foolish. Nothing could make Ginny Weasley anything but pure. If someone put the devils mark on her arm, she would still go to heaven.

He was the only thing that made her anything but the purist of pure but I didn't know that until much later."


	5. Save the Innocents

**_Save the Innocents_**

"I noticed throughout the rest of Draco's school years, there was an on and off-ness about Draco and Ginny's relationship. Once again I can not say this as fact because neither talked to me at this point but from the things I observed and gathered. I thought Draco would slowly eat away, if maybe just a little, at Ginny's spirit. Every time he hurt her, I thought that he would chip away at her and eventually she would break. She never broke.

Later I would discover that as time went on she did not forgive him as easily every time but she forgave him. She always forgave him, not because of his winning personality, or because she believed he would never do it again. She forgave him because her body compelled her to. It was that foreign idea of love that always made her forgive him. Even if she did not know it; she believed love would conquer all.

Toward the end of Draco's seventh year, they were no longer together. I couldn't understand. I knew Draco loved her, I knew he did. But after Easter vacation he returned to school and he didn't even notice her. He didn't smile but he smirked. He never laughed, he scoffed. I don't remember him so much as making eye contact with me.

I soon found out the reason of Draco's distancing himself from Ginny. The next time I saw Draco, I had caught him in an empty classroom, past curfew, with Pansy Parkinson. Pansy Parkinson was a girl Slytherin to the very core, she was deceitful, she was arrogant, she was vain and like Draco, she was a coward. It was something I could not stand about my house: the cowardice. It made me cringe and cry out in shame, at least inside.

Draco's last year was the very same year that the war would truly come to head. Dumbledore knew, I knew, I think mostly everyone knew. It was time to make a decision, the way Dumbledore saw it he had two options, he could fight with everything he had then and set Harry Potter on the Dark Lord and hope he prevailed with excessive help. He could do that or he could buy Harry time and leave the world in darkness but help the odds.

It was not an easy decision, it was often tempting to just ask Harry Potter what he wanted and just go along but that was the easy way out; that was making it easier on your own heart. It was too much of a burden to lie on a child. That's what they all were, they were children and they needed to secure their own futures and safety—I think that struck a cord with Dumbledore. When children were doing the fighting to protect their own futures, it meant the adults weren't doing their jobs.

It all factored into the decision; there comes a time in war where one must realize there will be losses and as difficult and as sick as it sounds, you must weigh your losses, even if they are in human lives. So we weighed, we weighed lives for months and the best we could come up with was saving the innocent and strong. Dumbledore hated it, but he knew there came a time where what he wanted and what he could do were not interchangeable. So we went into action.

All the children and adults that would help the order and fight were separated, slowly but surely, from the rest; as were the innocent. We needed fighters, builders and believers. Harry Potter was a fighter, he would fight for the cause and possibly die for it but if he succeeded, there would be leaders left to rebuild the wizarding world. Fighters and builders alone are not good enough though, it is not mans power by destruction that brings things together, it is his power by mind. This is where the innocents came in, the believers; we needed them to keep us going.

I am sad to say that this meant your average working man had no place in survival. If he survived, it would be of luck or by darkness. This was the largest flaw in the plan. It is not the extraordinary people that make evil people; the Dark Lord himself was just an abandoned orphan. It is those people that are average, that work all their life and never get recognition that are the worse off, in the end. That was the flaw, the workers, the people that made life's circle truly fall into place would be left behind and they would get angry.

An angry man, with nothing to loose, rarely prevails over darkness. So we did not tell the world. We did not let people know what measures we had taken to secure life in the future; what people had to be sacrificed to attain success.

I'm ashamed to say I fought to keep this plan in place, rather then find an alternative. Perhaps it was because I am a fighter and I would not have been left behind. Perhaps it was because it gave Draco more time to redeem himself. Perhaps it was because Ginny Weasley was an innocent. Whatever it was, the plan remained and that only helped spiral things into succession"


End file.
